Testing the effect of early‐life reproductive effort on age‐related decline in a wild insect

Rodríguez‐Muñoz, Rolando; Boonekamp, Jelle J.; Liu, Xing P.; Skicko, Ian; Fisher, David N.; Hopwood, Paul; Tregenza, Tom

doi:10.1111/evo.13679

Cited by 40 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…This pattern is somewhat consistent with the results where the expression of traits related to reproduction (e.g. song activity, mate search, dominance) do not come with clear longevity costs in the wild in Gryllus campestris (Rodríguez-Muñoz et al, 2019). Longevity costs related to mating success seem to be more complex and depend on the degree (and form) of density-dependent plasticity in hourly mating success.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…This practically meant that we removed males from the focal male data set that were found, and marked, in the middle/end of the season (specifically, days 15-27 after the maturation of the first individual; n = 7 males with unknown age). Removal of males with unknown exact adult age was important as age affects many traits in our model species, including the sexual signaling and attractiveness (Rodríguez-Muñoz et al, 2019; Verburgt, Ferreira, & Ferguson, 2011), and thus had to be controlled for in our models. Notably, those males with unknown exact adult age were included when calculating local density.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Density-dependent costs and benefits of male mating success in a wild insect

Niemelä

Tiso

Dingemanse

2019

Preprint

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Social environments are important determinant of fitness, particularly when same-sex local densities shape both mating success and survival costs.We studied how mating success varied across a range of naturally occurring local male densities in wild field cricket males, Gryllus campestris, monitored by using fully automated RFID-surveillance system. We predicted that mating success as a function of local density follow a concave pattern predicted by the Allee-effect theory. As increasing density should reduce per capita predation and parasitism risk, we predicted that males generally having high mating success in low (versus high) local density live less long. Finally, we predicted that males on average occurred in local densities where their mating success is highest.Male mating success followed a density-dependent pattern predicted by the Allee-effect theory. Males also differed in the local density where their mating success was highest. This variation explained longevity and total fitness: males with high mating success in low local density lived longer and had higher total mating success. Finally, we found no evidence of males occupying local densities in which their mating success is highest.Our study suggest that density-dependent plasticity in mating success is under selection: males having high mating success in low density, but low mating success in high density, lived longer and had higher overall mating success. We thus provide novel insights, with unseen detail, about individual differences in density-dependent mating success and, costs and benefits related to variation in mating success in the wild. Finally, our study also highlights that specific statistical approaches are needed to firmly study the costs and benefits associated with the traits that are repeatedly expressed across range of environments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Density-dependent costs and benefits of male mating success in a wild insect

Niemelä

Tiso

Dingemanse

2019

Preprint

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“…We collected adult and subadult crickets from ten sites in Northern Spain (see Table 1) in late April and early May 2018 using burrow traps (for details on trapping see Rodríguez-Muñoz et al (2019a)). Five sites were at low altitude (84 ± 59m above sea level (mean ± SD)) and five sites were at high altitude (1148 ± 164m).…”

Section: Cricket Collection and Breedingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Telomere length is highly heritable and independent of growth rate manipulated by temperature in field crickets

Boonekamp

Rodríguez‐Muñoz

Hopwood

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Many organisms are capable of growing faster than they do. Restrained growth rate has functionally been explained by negative effects on lifespan of accelerated growth. However, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Telomere attrition has been proposed as a causal agent and has been studied in endothermic vertebrates. We established that telomeres exist as chromosomal-ends in a model insect, the field cricket, using terminal restriction fragment and Bal 31 methods. Telomeres comprised TTAGGn repeats of 38kb on average, more than four times longer than the telomeres of human infants. Bal 31 assays confirmed that telomeric repeats were located at the chromosome-ends. We tested whether rapid growth is achieved at the expense of telomere length by comparing crickets reared at 23°C with their siblings reared at 28°C, which grew three times faster. Surprisingly, neither temperature treatment nor age affected average telomere length. Concomitantly, the broad sense heritability of telomere length was remarkably high at ~100%. Despite high heritability, the evolvability (a mean standardized measure of genetic variance) was low relative to that of body mass. We discuss the different interpretations of these scaling methods in the context of telomere evolution. It is clear that some important features of vertebrate telomere biology are evident in an insect species dating back to the Triassic, but also that there are some striking differences. The apparent lack of an effect of growth rate and the total number of cell divisions on telomere length is puzzling, suggesting that telomere length could be actively maintained during the growth phase. Whether such maintenance of telomere length is adaptive remains elusive and requires further study investigating the links with fitness in the wild.

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“…This principle is at the core of the theory of ageing, which predicts that, as reproduction is resource demanding, current reproduction is traded-off against future reproduction and survival, caused by a reduced investment into somatic protection and maintenance [2][3][4]. However, recent studies have sometimes revealed patterns of actuarial (decline in survival rate with age) and reproductive (decline in reproductive success with age) senescence rather contrasted with this prediction [5][6][7]. Since individuals may differ in both resource acquisition and resource allocation between traits, depending on individual and environmental quality, the cost of reproduction can remain undetected at the population level [8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-specific patterns of senescence in artificial insect populations varying in sex-ratio to manipulate reproductive effort

et al. 2020

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Background: The disposable soma theory of ageing assumes that organisms optimally trade-off limited resources between reproduction and longevity to maximize fitness. Early reproduction should especially trade-off against late reproduction and longevity because of reduced investment into somatic protection, including immunity. Moreover, as optimal reproductive strategies of males and females differ, sexually dimorphic patterns of senescence may evolve. In particular, as males gain fitness through mating success, sexual competition should be a major factor accelerating male senescence. In a single experiment, we examined these possibilities by establishing artificial populations of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor, in which we manipulated the sex-ratio to generate variable levels of investment into reproductive effort and sexual competition in males and females. Results: As predicted, variation in sex-ratio affected male and female reproductive efforts, with contrasted sexspecific trade-offs between lifetime reproduction, survival and immunity. High effort of reproduction accelerated mortality in females, without affecting immunity, but high early reproductive success was observed only in balanced sex-ratio condition. Male reproduction was costly on longevity and immunity, mainly because of their investment into copulations rather than in sexual competition. Conclusions:Our results suggest that T. molitor males, like females, maximize fitness through enhanced longevity, partly explaining their comparable longevity.

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Testing the effect of early‐life reproductive effort on age‐related decline in a wild insect

Cited by 40 publications

References 39 publications

Density-dependent costs and benefits of male mating success in a wild insect

Density-dependent costs and benefits of male mating success in a wild insect

Telomere length is highly heritable and independent of growth rate manipulated by temperature in field crickets

Sex-specific patterns of senescence in artificial insect populations varying in sex-ratio to manipulate reproductive effort

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